The Case Against Suicide Bombing as a Strategy for the Attainment of a Palestinian State

As violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories spirals out of control, it is worth taking a moment to analyze the current Palestinian strategy of suicide attacks and their effects on the prospects for a Palestinian state.Suicide attacks are being viewed as heroic acts within the Middle East as well as among elements of the Left in both Europe and the USA. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even the Palestinian Authority praise the suicide bombers as martyrs in their struggle against the Jews in Palestine and Israel.

These attacks have occurred in shopping malls, supermarkets, and restaurants. The attackers have been the uninvited guests at weddings, Passover supper, and bar mitzvahs. They have targeted soldiers and civilians - with the vast majority of attacks being perpetrated against civilians. The attacks have occurred in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem and Israel proper. The bombs themselves are designed to maximize casualties. Explosives are packed under ball bearings, nails, and nuts and bolts.

While each attack can kill scores of people, many more are maimed and seriously injured - not to mention the psychological trauma experienced by survivors seeing pieces of their friends and loved ones scattered around a hotel dining room or restaurant.

Historically suicide attacks have been the last ditch efforts of the defeated. In 1945, the Imperial Forces of Japan began launching "kamikaze" attacks against advancing Allied forces. At this point Japan had exhausted its supply of experienced fighter pilots, and the "kamikaze" was viewed as the only way to counter Allied air supremacy. As an invasion of the Japanese home islands appeared an eventuality, preparations were being made on the home front to arm children with exploding backpacks and teaching them to overcome their innate fear of foreign faces as the last defense of Japan. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong used suicide missions against South Vietnamese and American forces in South Vietnam - the Tet Offensive being the most famous.

While American casualties were relatively light, the propaganda victory of the offensive lead to decreasing popular support for the war.So if the tactic failed for the Japanese and succeeded for the North Vietnamese, is it possible for it to succeed for the Palestinians?

The reason it worked for the North Vietnamese is that it exacted a cost that the Americans were no longer willing to pay.From the Palestinian perspective the tactic could work in the Occupied Territories, which most Israelis are willing to give up for a Palestinian state. Many Israelis recognize that the cost of the occupation is too high to bear, and presented with a way out of the morass of the territories, would take it.

However suicide attacks will fail in Israel proper because they threaten the very existence of the Israeli state as well as its Jewish citizens. To use an analogy, one can negotiate with a mugger but not a murderer. A mugger wants something from you but a murderer is intent on killing you. Therefore one will fight less to save one's wallet than one's life.

The Hamas bombing on Passover night proves that Hamas is not intent on being a mugger - it wants to kill Jews. In it's communiqué, found at its website (amazing how terror groups are techno-savvy these days), the "military communiqué" congratulates the murderer for "blast(ing) his pure body amidst a gathering of Jewish settlers who usurped our cities and villages." It then lists the supposed justifications for the attack, including "what the Zionist entity and its ally America call "innocent civilians" are called in our Brigades and our Palestinian people's lexicon settlers and usurpers of our lands. They will only receive death and displacement and if they wish to save their lives they have to pack up and leave before they regret it."

Hamas is not asking the Jews to leave the so-called "occupied territories" - they are calling for Jews to flee the Middle East. The communiqué goes on, stating "Our people do not accept other than Jihad and resistance as the main path to regain usurped rights," and ends with a call for "jihad until either victory or martyrdom".

In such a fight to the death between two people, it is logical that the Israelis would choose the latter path for their adversaries. Although Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah have access to willing men, women and children to carry their bombs, what they lack is any overall strategy for overcoming a better-armed foe that now views itself fighting for its very existence.

Such a foe has begun a policy of re-occupation that increases the misery of both sides of the conflict while making continued operations more difficult. Sympathizers may perceive terrorist attacks as being the acts of the desperate, but in actuality they are acts designed to minimize retribution. When these acts result in massive retribution, as was seen in the American war in Afghanistan, and the reoccupation of Palestinian Authority lands in the West Bank, they can only be considered failures.
This will not deter the Islamicists who view their struggle as being ordained by god. However it will show the secular leadership such as PLO Chairman Arafat that they cannot ride the coat tails of the terror attacks to Palestinian statehood in the same way that the Taliban government could not achieve legitimacy while sheltering Al-Qaeda. As a consequence the Palestinians are further away from their state than they were before the attacks began.